Is the devil really your father?

A couple of Sunday school kids were arguing if there really is a Devil. One terminated the day's discussion with the statement "I think it's like Santa Claus, it is really your father". With Christmas Day streaking toward us at high speed, the timing of the Metropolitan Opera's simulcast of Gounod's Faust was sure to confuse the devout. For centuries, the story of Dr. Faustus has twitted the creative energies of many composers. Opera News for November had quite a scholarly article or the subject while omitting two versions which are favorites of this blogger. The two extra favorites are Boito's Mefistofele and the Broadway version, titled Damyankees. As a maturing liberal student of electrical engineering (and Detroit Tigers fan) he ethought it most clever of the aging realtor to demand an "escape clause". The Broadway writer must have gotten the idea from Boito. The Devil promises nothing but pleasures for 24 years; If any pleasure causes Faust to say "Stay. Thou art beautiful". the Devil wins Faust's soul. But, in 24 years, Faust has not said the magic words. Back in his study, he opens his Bible and immediately he has a vision of a beautiful land where the potholes get filled and the laws are just(The rich pay their share of taxes) ; as the heavenly chorus swells, Faust says ""Arrestate!); the devil starts sinking into the earth yelling "Faust.Faust!". As the chorus and orchestra get to or over the EPA level for permitted sound level, nobody feels sorry for the Devil.

Is Bad Hair a Felony?

In the past week, a former governor of the state of Illinois, famous for his ample black hair, was sentenced to 14 years in state prison for his offenses. Meanwhile, a blowhard named Donald Trump threatened to sponsor a debate for GOP presidential candidates until a total lack of interest became manifest. Mr Trump has for a long time been famous for a flagrant combover of the hairs of his head, plus perhaps augmentations. There has been no published threat of prosecution of Mr Trump for hair offenses. Now, to this writer, it appears that there is a shortage of space for incarceration of the likes of MR's Trump or Blagoyovich and that prison capacity should be reserved for those who are proven threats to the health of society. The fates of the gentlemen just mentioned should be grouped with smokers of hashish; The scarce resources of the state should be devoted to the nourishment of deserving poor, children and the aged. Other offenses should be punished by fines and similar penalties. Those who continue to grow hair should be left to do it. If cash becomes less scarce, some might be devoted to providing hats to those individuals who no longer can protect their bare scalps.from ultraviolet radiation.

Is America Great?

How did it get that way? By people working together. To work together, people must be moved to cooperation for a shared objective. There lies the intractable problem. Some people wish to render to the "guvmint" as little as possible of their wealth; apparently their recollection of how they obtained this wealth is that they gathered up gold nuggets among the manna that came from heaven. There is a departure from good sense here that acts as though God will maintain tax-free the superhighways he has given us, along with the free military complex. Others of us understand that our elected legislators levied taxes to pay for filling the inevitable potholes, to feed our troops in Afghanistan and buy the ammunition they so freely use, to fuel their humvees and to pay the salaries of cavalierly congresspersons who swore an oath to a radical of apparent Swedish background to obey him a rather than to uphold their oath of office and to pass the laws that will protect the less rich 99% of the citizenry and begin to retrieve the shameful gains of the super-rich. Grover Norquist must have learned a lot from Mephistofele

Carla Fiorina was Bill Hewlett's Babe Herman

Fasten your seat belts, all 8 our faithful blogreaders are in for a bumpy ride. First, you have to be old enough to remember when baseball preoccupied the minds of much of the male population. Before you become really absorbed, you must bear in mind that most of what your blogger remembers comes from reading history. Thus, your blogger's recollections.
Casey Stengel spent two or three years as player-manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, which assemblage contained a slugging outfielder named Babe Herman; Herman was not dumber than an ox, but not much smarter either. Early in one game, as he tended left field, he tried to catch an easy flyball; he wandered around out there and finally let it fall untouched. Casey lectured him gently but hoped for better. In a succeeding inning he let another one drop. Furiously, Casey jerked Herman and substituted himself. On the next fly to left, he wandered around and he let it fall: at the end of the inning, he stormed in and yelled at Herman "See, you've got left field so screwed up nobody can play it!"
William Hewlett and David Packard got their start selling audio generators to Walt Disney to make weird sounds in the movie "Fantasia" They progressed to manufacturing a wide variety of electronic instruments that were crucial to the World War II effort. After the war, IBM found they could sell computing machines for over 100 kilo dollars. HP thought they could sell a more modest machine for a few kilodollars, but found they were getting too massive, so they split off the instrument division, called it Agilent, and then hired an ambitious young woman called Carly Fiorina to run the computer division, which assumed the name Hewlett Packard. Carly, under the impression that HP could corner the computer market, thought she should merge with another hardware company, not realizing that the big profits come from selling printers ink a milliliter at a time, and soon she succumbed to stockholder restlessness. The next CEO, from a software company, proposed they depart the computer business entirely. The present CEO has greatly dissipating a sizeable nest egg, earned by putting sellers and buyers of lawnmowers together, in an unsuccessful run at the governorship of California.
Finally, perhaps, maybe Bill and Dave are too tough an act to follow.

Credibility of two well-known black female persons

In his hearings related to his joining the Supreme Court and never agAIN DOING doing any useful work, Clarence Thomas heard (and resented) some very uncomplimentary testimony from a professor of law from Oklahoma named Anita Hill. In a recent Newsweek, we find one Stanford grad whom many of us hoped for much better from, named Condolezza Rice, that George Bush did so care about the New Orleans black folk drowning or becoming homeless in Hurricanes Katrina. I believe Anita Hill, I do't believe Condi Rice

Clarence Thomas should be impeached and replaced

How does such a scofflaw keep his office? He failed to declare and pay income tax on about a million dollars. He does none of the work. He never has written an independant opinion; Once he finds out Scalia's opinion, he is content simply to echo it. The American people pay for and should receive much more from him.

Two Hurricanes-Two "Deciders

Concern for Peoples' needs trumps Cronyism. To head FEMA, Bush II chose a promoter of horse shows. (Immediately, this ex-farm boy has an almost uncontrollable urge to change the last three letters in the previous sentence to two different ones.) As New Orleans was drowning, that director of FEMA was most concerned that he be dressed well for his TV appearances. "You're doing a heckuva job Brownie" was Bush' praise as more than 15,000 died.

The nation seemed much better prepared for the onslaught of Irene. John Donne said, Every man's death diminishes me" but the death of about 40 from Irene is much less troubling that more than 400 TIMES AS MANY from from Katrina.

In the wake of 9/11, the nation's cowboy in chief sounded as though he had a posse already saddled up to go out and bring in the successful schemer "Dead or Alive". Some seven years later, the horses were presumably still saddled up but nobody sent them. For a little over two years, Obama must have been listening more intelligently to his intelligence team; one night, he got his advisors together in a briefing room and told the Navy Seals task force, "Go into this villa right near the Pakistan military academy. I think the big Kahuna is there". He was. Let's re-elect Team Obama in 2012.

If America is smart

it will make John Boenher a one term speaker of the House.

Is it better to be an unsung hero

or an unsung shmoe? Opera is full of sung heroes, such as Puccini's Cavaradossi and Golijov 's Federico Lorca. Interestingly, Hemingway borrowed a paragraph from a British preacher, John Donne, who finished a statement with " Every man's death diminishes me, for I am involved with mankind.......Therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." The hero of the movie, played by Gary Cooper, arrived among the Spanish gypsies to demolish a bridge and prevent Franco's troops from using it, having had a pleasant night after Ingrid Bergman crawled into the sleeping bag with him. He blows the bridge, but on the escape is thrown by an unfamiliar horse, breaking his leg and having to be left, so they put him in a good place with a rifle and lots of ammo, to hold the troops off as long as possible. Good, wrenching scene there. The poet and playwright, Lorca, should have had sense to stay in South America, as urged by his friend, actress-director Margarita Xirgu, but you know, it is rare to find a tenor with good sense, so he comes home to join the supporters of the king, of all people and is promptly executed by Franco's police. The name of that opera is Ainadamar (Fountain of Tears, commemorating a 19th century conflict). Of course, France has a share of conflicted heroes: There is Andrea Chenier, the poet, comforting the scared chick being trundled to the guillotine along with him, and Dickens" Sidney Carton "It is a better death than my life was", or words to that effect. But for us unheralded standup comedians, one tries to leave them laughing.

Is Knowledge Still Power?

Or is it Ignorance? This writer grew up in a confident era. The U.S.A. had just brought to bear the weight of G.M., Boeing and its formidable food production to humble Naziism and Imperial Japan. Your blogger started college, learned theories of Newton, Maxwell, and observed that coal miners from Pennsylvania could be teamed with a smattering of muscles from outstate Michigan to humble the misnamed "Fighting Irish". He saw the world is willing to burn up millenia worth of stored carbon to power inefficient vehicles that deliver humans to very remote vacations Gradually, he stopped thinking of every live birth as a gift from a beneficent God. He came to doubt that the power of prayer could cause his Creator to vacate the laws of physics and biology which he must have created. He observed Fox News promoting the ignorance of female demagogues from Alaska and Minnesota and the great Satan from Rio Linda California and feels bad about the vast store of ignorance he has not wiped out in his career as an educator. He did not even enjoy the company of Helen of Troy along the way. Oh well, Faust had it good, but that is legend, not biography.

SHOW US THE JOBS

that were produced by the Bush tac cuts. After you find one, look for another. To justify further enriching the really rich, there need to be a lot of them.

Call Me Cassandro

The narrator of Moby Dick begins the story with "Call me Ishmael" and carries on for about 1000 pages of typical New England fiction. Now, Cassandra was the Trojan prophetess who thought it would be a great idea to incinerate the Trojan Horse, which she dreamed presciently would emit bloodthirsty Greeks to slaughter the people. However, she did not convince the citizenry, who thought the Greeks had brought a nice "no hard feelings" gift.

The reason for the revised opinion of the Blog title is to express the instinctive Norwegian pessimism of the writer. He is a male, hence the masculine formulation. He grew up precisely halfway from the equator to the north pole. He had doubts about the prophecy of the ground hog regarding "only" six weeks more of winter; in a leap year, that would land one right on the Ides of March. Yours truly often wished the woodchuck and chucked a couple of weeks more of wood so as to emerge into somewhat balmyer temperatures.

To everything there is a season---

but professional sorts promoters have hopelessly confused just what any particular season was. In the writer's youth, if there were windfall peaches over near Peterson Park, we knew it was time for the world series. Good Heavens, in the 2010 season, memory seems to recall a game in December.
Of course, the question is also muddled by another question, to wit, "When does fruit taste good?".Canny merchandisers always try to make sure the fruit they are selling has the colors seen in the seed catalog. Such fruit simply may not taste very good. It may have attractive shades of red and yellow, but a blindfolded taste test could make it difficult to distinguish fruit from a white potato. Now, those windfall peaches or pears may have light bruises. THESE BRUISES ARE NOT POISONOUS, or yours truly would not be eying fourscore years,nor his brothers. fours score and seven or five, respectively. In their experience, one is forced to preach the benefits of flushing Los Angeles fumes from their lungs.
The season for fresh air is always; the season for ripe fruit is more often than might be expected.

Is Heartburn diagnosed in the BiBle?

Those who know the writer and his delight with puns and other word play probably already expect an affirmative answer and are racking their brains for an answer. Well, the gospel of Luke, probably the most poetic of them qll begins with guys camping out with the sheep to chase off the wolves, and ends with the Easter story. A couple of men from the suburb 10-12 km from Jerusalem are heading home, greatly depressed. A third man draws near and asks what is depressing them. They say, are you the only pilgrim to Jerusalem who has not heard or Jesus of Nazareth, who we thought would rescue us from the Romans, but the priests turned him over soldiers, who crucified him. But, they could not kill the idea and rumors are flying that people hAVE SEEN HIM ALIVE. The man starts explaining that the prophets predicted all this. Presently, they arrived at the home of the two men and they invite the stranger in for a bite. He blesses the food and and at least one exclaims the original form of OMG! and the stranger vanishes. They eat not a bite but head back to Jerusalem, saying "Did not our hearts burn within us when he was opening the scriptures to us?"

The writer wondered about medical knowledge in King JAMES' dAY. Did the doctors of the day know that stomach gas and nausea might accompany a heart attack? The writer is not quthoritative in tat area. If, however one is obsessed with cylindricq streams of electrons flowing through qn evacuated, pipe, There, he has well placed authority and a Ph.D. Happy Hunting!

Remember Wotan?

No? Remember Anna Russell? No? Remember Veronica Lake? Aha, perhaps a glimmer of recognition? Remember Bryn Terfel? Well, then. Anna Russell was a standup commedienne in the 1960's and onward. She had very good vocal training, but one day she accidentally discovered she could make people laugh and that became her act. She set up to explain the entire 4 opera series of Richard Wagner called Der Ring Des Niebelungen. At the very beginning, she says "The Opera opens in the Rhine River. IN it." It seems there is a hoard of gold there, which if one appropriated it, made a magic ring of it and renounced Love, he could rule the world. Since the dwarf Alberich was even then being mocked by the Rhinemaidens he thought his chances for love were non-existent and he may as well rule the world. Meanwhile, the head god, named Wotan after whom the Germans named Wednesday, had engaged some giant brothers to build a auitable mansion for his family and decided the way to pay them was to trick Alberich out of his gold. Alberich being a sore loser, put a curse on the ring that anyone who had it would surely die. The giants quarrel over the ring and one (Fafner)slays his brother (Fasolt) so we all know "The curse is working" But, as a defensive measure Wotan, to whom marriage vows are a big handicap, makes it with Erda, the goddess of Earth, who presents him with 9 daughters, called the Vakyries, and put them to work gathering up dead heroes to guard Valhalla.
Veronica Lake was a movie actress of the 1940's who wore a "peekaboo" hairdo with one curled wave covering one eye. Remember Wotan? Well, to woo Erda, he plucked out an eye (Funny what will impress the ladies) Current publicity pictures show the current Wotan, played by a fine Welsh baritone named Bryn Terfel, with one eye covered by a curl in his wig. It looked better with Veronica Lake; However, Terfel sings a lot better.
So how does it all end? A woman scorned brings it all down. Wotan's (Remember Wotan?)Favorite daughter is so offended by the betrayel of the great hero Siegfried that she deals with the bad baritones to kill him. Right away shs is sorry and makes a huge funeral pyre for him, Valhalla catches fire and burns up those rather dense gods, the Rhine floods and the Rhinemaidens retrieve the ring, and we are right back where we started 20 hours ago.
So we might say that in some unexpected way, the power of love wins over the power of gold. It might be deeply depressing, were it not for the joys of German cuisine not only on the days between operas, but even at intermissions between acts. One just has to plan ahead a little and order ahead for those entracts. Or the very original creations of "That German girl that Charles married" are almost alone worth the price of the trip. Guten Appetit!!

"Do you know Art?"

"Art Who?""Artesian" "Oh yes, I know Artesian Well"
I would like to offer, that at the new DeYoung Museum of San Francisco, it apparently can be a statue depicting the head of Jesus on a dressed ready-for-the-prom body of Aphrodite; diverting, but slightly startling. In another room, people in a painting looked unexceptional until one read the title "John Brown on his way from courtroom to gallows." Depending on ones poltics, the emotions roused by a work of art can vary from "He got what he deserved" to "He gave his life for a worthy principle." Saturday, from the Metropolitan Opera we got the pathetic end of the lovers in Sir Walter Scott's novel. Lucia. And soon we get to thrill to Emerson's "Here the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world." Those colonies were apparently so small that the noise carried all the way to New Hampshire, according to the fact-challenged republican congressperson from Minnesota.
Of course, art is not just paintings: Shakespeare did wonders with words"Antony, ket me have aro9und me men who are fat, sleek-headed men and such who sleep anight. Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. Such men are dangerous."
But this writer really loves the art of music. Yesterday, we got a dozen or so people to hear J.S.Bach's B-minor Mass. The mind just keeps repeating that finale. There is just one word "Amen" for 5 minutes or so,a choir singing in four parts. totally stunning.

What makes you sick

Science is most importantly about running controlled experiments. The difficulty with finding the cause of human illness is that being human practically guarantees the subject is out of control. Furthermore, if the subject's environment is a contributor, everyones environment is unpredictable and potentially toxic or infective. A current very active controversy concerns the effect of electromagnetic fields (abbreviated emf's) in causing brain tumors to develop. Since an increased incidence of brain tumors coincides with a spectacular increase of cell phone use, accusations of cause and effect swiftly arose, and recently, this writer observed organized opposition to the building of a new cell phone tower in a lightly settled residential neighborhood. But to this student of electrical engineering, a number of pertinent questions arise. First, what aspect of an electromagnetic wave is responsible? For over 100 years,our scientists have pointed out that radio waves and the like contain both electric fields and magnetic fields. If one considers what the electric utility delivers to our homes to produce hear and light, It is dramatically changed just before it enters the house. The utility has known since the time of Edison that if it distributes the power to a neighorhood at high voltage, it loses much less of the energy (for which it is being paid) than if the current were high. Thus, the practice is to distribute at high voltage, then to step down to 120 volts just before intering the house.

Now, if high voltage is the villain in producing brain tumors, one might expect linemen and other professionals to have a high incidence of tumors; this has not been observed. Some investigations of magnetic fields in domestic settings have found them to be higher near machines, such as vacuum cleaners, mixers and hair driers. In our civilization, electric and magnetic fields cannot be avoided, although a careful individual can reduce, but not eliminate exposure.

And so, what about thsse cell phones? They contain very low power transceivers, "Listening" for incoming signals and producing a ring-tone if a call is intended for that receiver. The user then turns on more circuitry to receive the call. Since the power comes from a tiny battery, the phone is designed for high efficiency, and this family's IPhone 3 will stay charged for more than a day if not heavily used. Oh course, the brain receives maximum emf's when the phone is pressed to the user's head. The cautious might prefer to listen through earbuds. The thinking human will give some thought to which risks he/she would prefer to avoid.

Don't expect "Good Kids" to solve global warming

The author was a staggeringly well=behaved child. He was so well behaved that his teachers were doubtless very frustrated at having to seat him up where he could see the blackboard. until he got glasses. Big brother. on the other hand was a rebellious child. One remembers a famous line from ourn maternal
grandmother, "Raymond,why can't you me a bood boy?" "I don't want to be a good boy". Yours truly was wonderful at learning the conventional wisdom ar rules of grammar and teaching them. Ray, however had the spark of creativity enabling him to synthesize solutions to difficult questions. This skill is next to impossible to teach. On the other hand, the writer remembers one of his first students. At age 20, he had patented a motorcycle ignition system. During my lectures. he sat there soaking it up, never putting pen to paper, then when his colleagues had gotten to their feet to leave, he would ask astonishly perceptive questions. This is what Obama needs a number of, to solve the world's technical problems. 40 years have not suggested how to teach such skills. We are left with a faint hope there will be some perceptive teachers who can nurture such skills and not beat them out of the kid. Planet Earth desperately needs such teachers.

Would new bifocals have helped Picasso?

The wruter is in possession of a flyer from the DeYoung Museum which promotes an upcoming show with Picasso exhibits. The painting serving as a come-on which claims to be a lady's portrait; Her nose seems located such that both eyss seem to be on the same side of the nose. Since I have worn bifocals, I have personally observed such an anomaly if the object I am inspecting falls at the dividing line between the two sections. This is not the first time one has seen artistic effects that some experts attribute to vision defects; apparently Van gogh showed what he actually saw in his "Starry Night", with perhaps a small amount of exaggertion for artistic effext. One should not confuse a painting to a photograph taken with a good camera.

Lincoln had an inkling

As he rode the train from Washington to Gettysburg, Lincoln wrote "The world will little know nor long remember what we say here---" Telegraph had been invented, so he could expect that a diligent operator could flash his words over much of his domain. I just finished waTCHING the telecast of the Rose Parade,presimably watched by millions of people worldwide. Now these people probably never wonder about what came to your writer, Who has watched these parades perhaps for 50-60 years. This morning, I wondered "what and where is the city of Sierra Madre? Well, accordingto Google, in 2000 they had 10,000 men , women and children, and yet they consider it worthwhile t0 have a float in the parade. Only in this U.S. of A do towns assert their identity in this way. Now, of course, I asserted my identity by writing a blog and after a year and a half I have 7(seven) people who will admit following it. In comparison, resulting from the work of Time"s person of the year 2011. countless people submit reqauests to be my "Friend". Gee, if I agree, what do I do then? What, out of thin air, should I say? Better, people should read my blog. The talkative part of my soul is exposed there. The link is cgnnenatelgranada@blogspot.com. Stay in touch. Maybe this year I will get really productive.